Historically, information accumulated by the aircraft data acquisition equipment receives input from a variety of transducers and/or sensors throughout aircraft, which ultimately provide digital and analog data based on the outputs of the sensors. This stored information often goes unaccounted for and is deleted following the completion of a successful flight. If collected at all, it is often collected and analyzed post flight or post incident. The integrity of this data is at the mercy of the box in which it is stored. In the event of a catastrophic failure during flight, it is up to the geographical location of the plane where it crashed to find the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) in order to retrieve the critical information used for investigation purposes. Furthermore, it is reliant on the integrity of the box (DFDR) post-incident to provide the data for interrogation and analysis. This serves no purpose when providing initial life saving measures or search and rescue efforts in obscure locations around the world (e.g. north Atlantic, Pacific, etc.).
In 1995, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in an attempt to remedy this situation, recommended that collected flight data be reviewed in regular intervals. Another proposed solution was to download aircraft data at the gate via wireless ground link using a quick access recorder (QAR). The current avenues to stream flight data in real time are limited to only a few prohibitively expensive means; primarily via satellite communications (SATCOM) and/or very high frequency (VHF) radio frequency (RF) receivers using the aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS) messaging system. In the art, an enormous challenge to facilitate affordable in-flight streaming data has been the means by which to accumulate and disseminate the data in real time or near real time at a reasonable cost. The present application seeks to address one or all of the above issues.